Review of The Northman (2022) by Jluis_001 — 22 Apr 2022

Robert Eggers continues to cement his upward path in this visceral, brutal, violent, esoteric and magnificent Viking epic that manages to restore my faith in major studios trusting filmmakers outside the mainstream to deliver films like this that are rarely seen in theaters anymore.

This story is well known of course. It's a classic revenge story and if you know anything more about Hamlet than just Shakespeare's name, then you'll know pretty well who Amleth is. But even a classic story can become something quite different, it all depends on how you tell it.

In The Northman Eggers respects his own precepts and stays true to what he did in The Witch and The Lighthouse.

Certainly he has to give in to certain whims of more conventional cinema, but that's understandable because hardly a studio will give him $90 million without considering getting their hands in the production. Nevertheless and fortunately, his signature is fully present in everything you see on screen. It is clearly his vision.

In terms of plot, narrative and psychological depth, I had heard some comparisons to The Green Knight that I didn't quite understand. I mean, I don't doubt that Eggers could have delivered such a film had he set his mind to it, but even beyond what he had to allow himself as an auteur when faced with creating a film that felt more accessible, The Northman has a more than palpable and pulsating identity. A violent and crude identity.

If in any way you feel he sacrificed his style and freedom to create something bigger and different, that's understandable, but judge his work by what he does and not by what you feel he may have lost as a filmmaker.

Ultimately, The Northman is not a subtle or nuanced film, and didn't try to be one, yet its savage, raw and bloody brutality more than makes up for any discernible weaknesses, if you are able to understand that this is the film he set out to do.